Sunday 15th July

Nuku Hiva
Marquesas

8 54.888 S
140 06.115 W

Happy Birthday Alice, will be thinking of you, travel safely today.

Rob Dehann – can’t locate your email address on this enormous floating luxury yacht, please let us know what it is at : - svorpailleur@hotmail.com, Gerry wants to email you.


We woke just a little too late to make it to the church service which began at 08.00hrs; we had talked of going but it would have taken us a good half hour to get there and we aren’t the best at getting up early in the morning, I’m sure God will forgive us! The day was another pretty looking day and as we emerged from the depths of the boat I noticed a sail boat making its way into the harbour. I yelled out to Gerry that it was possibly Y Not and he immediately jumped in the dink and roared out to welcome them in. Their story was that the wind had died on them completely and they had been motor sailing for the last 24hrs; obviously they were tired and glad to be here and they soon had their anchor down – just in front of us. Gerry took off into shore to go to the supermarket to buy some bread and croissants, he was gone for ever and when he finally reappeared he was empty handed; he had arrived there after the shop had closed for the day (it apparently opens at 07.00hrs until 10.00 hrs on Sundays for future reference). We ended up having to toast the last of a loaf I had baked a couple of days back. Once breakfast was out of the way we went out to try and sort out the mess that was the spinnaker. When it broke the halyard we had just dragged it back on board and stuffed it into the bag in any way we could – the day of reckoning was here, we attached it to the spare jib halyard and slowly raised it whilst straightening and tugging the sock into place. The weather was kind to us, there was no wind so we quickly managed to get it untangled and back in the sock properly; then we decided to leave it hanging as it was still soaked from the dive it took into the water. It hung all day and was still not dried out by the end of the day so we left it there thinking it would dry out over night – more on that later! Having finished with the spinnaker for the time being Gerry climbed back in the dink and continued to clean the sides of the boat off, the vegetable patch is now gone but the dirty marks needed to be scrubbed away with a mild bleach product. I retreated to the safety of the interior and began trying to organize the photos we had taken over the last 4 weeks into some sort of order and then tried to load the blog along with some pictures; I was successful to a point. I had to shut the computer down as the power was getting low and the batteries had to be recharged. Honestly it’s a real pain not having a working generator, I just hop ewe can get it fixed quickly in Tahiti. By lunchtime Gerry had finished with the scrubbing for the moment and we ate lunch in the cockpit. The afternoon was devoted to doing nothing except reading our books and in Gerry’s case having an afternoon nap. I woke him in plenty of time for a sundowner and some nibblies before dinner. We ate on board as our meat is beginning to defrost and we need to use it up. A reasonably early night followed but we were woken during the night by torrential rain; remember I said that we left the spinnaker up to dry out? – it was now soaked again but at least it was now soaked with fresh water. I got up and shut all the open hatches whilst Gerry snored on then went back to bed listening to the rain pelting down around us, I think that Y Not must have brought it here with them as it’s the first rain we have had since arriving!.